Are you left hanging by the invitation “Do you want to come with?” A Milwaukee native is proud of this regionalism, which means “Do you want to come along?” Grant explains that it may be related to the German verb mitkommen...
If you say to someone the Spanish equivalent of “you’re giving me green gray hairs” (me sacas canas verdes), it means that person is making you angry. In Japan, the phrase that literally translates as “one red dot”...
If you’ve “seen the elephant,” it means you’ve been in combat. But why an elephant? Martha and Grant also discuss some odd idioms in Spanish, including one that translates as “your bowtie is whistling.” And what...
Paul from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, spent his first 30 years in Minnesota, so Wisconsin friends sometimes call him a mud duck. In that border-rivalry setting, it’s usually a good-natured jab at Minnesotans, much like cheesehead for Wisconsinites. Among...
What do you say when you answer the telephone? On the NPR science blog, “Krulwich Wonders,” Robert Krulwich notes that hello did not become a standard greeting until the Edison Company recommended the word as a proper phone greeting...
Are we a nosy species? A listener married to a woman from Bangladesh explains how a Bengali term that translates as “nose-going” reflects the naturally inquisitive style of Bangladeshi culture. In many languages, the nose figures...